


Sunday Mourning

by SharpestRose



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grief can shatter even the biggest bitca. Well, almost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunday Mourning

"Upon a rug mingle to dissipate  
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.  
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark  
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,  
As a clam darkens among water-lights."  
~ Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning

It was almost dawn. They sat on the blanket, the worn cotton so thin in parts that the grass prickled at their legs and made them itch. For a change, they were being tolerant of her unkind words. She hated them for it.

"God, you're so ugly. What's that, your third vanilla slice? That's disgusting." she spat, her usual cruel wit replaced by simple, petty attacks. Ruby shrugged, refusing to be offended. Sunday's eyes narrowed and she got to her feet, stalking away from where they were all sitting and walking down towards the ocean, her shoe catching in the sand and making her stumble a little. Angrily, she pulled the strappy heel off her foot, her good shoes, shoes she hated, and kept walking away, escaping, her bare feet slipping on the downward slope.

Alex got to his feet and followed, calling out. She ignored him, stopping at the water's edge and sinking down onto her knees, her hair hanging in limp gold strands around her face.

"Sunday! Sunny!" he called. She looked and glared, scrubbing at her damp cheeks with her hands.

"You haven't called me that since we were fucking fourteen years old, Alex." she accused. He nodded.

"Yeah, and I haven't seen you go ten minutes without making Ruby hate you since then, either. Sometimes the rules change."

"I know. I hate that." she turned away from him again. "I wish everyone would stop being so nice."

"You're in mourning, Sun. We all just want what's best for you."

"And I fucking hate it!" she stood up again, putting her hands on her hips. "I don't want their damn sympathy. I don't want their damn *compassion*. I don't want to be in mourning. I don't want to wake up and know he's never going to call me a fraidycat again, because I won't go to his frat parties. I don't want any of it!"

She was shouting by the end of it, he voice raised above the pounding of the surf. Alex wasn't scared of her anger, he'd seen far worse from her unkind temper, but the fragility that was so naked right now and that she would never, ever expose by choice made him a little fearful.

"He had a Monet on his wall, Alex. Like everybody else. We went for iced coffee on Saturday nights, like everybody else. We made fun of the dorks and the boring losers, like everyone else. He was supposed to die when we were old, like everyone else." the words are more a wail then anything else, a pain so huge it cannot be described, the sense that somehow you have been wronged so utterly that nothing, nothing in the whole world, will make it right.

"Sun, sometimes shit happens." Alex hazarded.

"Stop calling me that!" she screamed at him. "I know shit happens! I know it does! But not to guys like him. If it can happen to a guy that lived a life like that, why can't it happen to me? Little Sunday Andrews, with Klimt prints on her dorm room wall, who got in trouble at the prom because she poured pig's blood down onto the king and queen? I'm as normal as he was. If it could happen to him, what's stopping it from happening to me? Or to you, or Ruby, or Dave, or anyone else?"

"Everyone dies eventually, Sun." he pointed out as gently as he could.

"No." she shook her head, her gaze fixed on the ocean. "Hear that, God? I hate you! You're never getting me. You're never getting anyone I care about, not again. Never, never, never. I'm going to live forever, just like fucking Dracula."

She sounded so sure of herself, Alex found himself almost believing her.


End file.
